i think washington is, too. but i think that, you know, everyone sort of is trying to figure out out. i think white house aides are telling me they are willing to compromise a little bit. but that was their initial wish list and now they're waiting for speaker boehner and republicans to kind of counter that offer. >> ed, i guess there are two ways to look at this. on the first hand the president just wants to use this as a starting point for negotiations to get to compromise. or maybe he feels he has an election mandate, and is operating from a position of strength. which one is it? >> that's part of it for sure. but you heard him say yesterday, look, this was our starting point. we know that both sides are going to have to make some painful concessions, and we'll see where things go. but, yeah, i mean the fact that he's going out there to, you know, swing congressional districts in pennsylvania, he may make similar trips in the coming days, sort of shows you that he knows that he has the popular mandate, that h